From The Athletic (paid site but I found the results of the article online), Ken Pomeroy wrote an article about the likelihood of each team to win each conference according to his metrics as of right now.
https://theathletic.com/194793/2017/12/ ... nce-races/
Missouri Valley: Missouri State 52%, Northern Iowa 27%, Loyola-Chicago 17%, Bradley 11%, Illinois State 11%
Kind of reaffirms what most of us think, MoState is the favorite but there's a lot of parity. The equation probably doesn't take coaching into effect but just metrics and schedule wise these are the current odds